August 30, 2019
General, thank you very much for having me here.
And thank you all for participating in this competition. It’s an honor for me to join you at this site of this tough competition. I’ve heard about the difficult things that you’ve gone through over the last couple of days.
Congratulations on going through it all. Congratulations to those who came out on the top. Congratulations to all of you who participated in this training and this competition.
I’m especially respectful of the Ukrainian units that went through, for the reasons that the General mentioned. The General said that Ukraine is special. Ukraine is very special, in many different ways. For the first time since World War II, Ukraine was invaded by a neighboring country, Russia. Ukraine has been defending itself from this aggression for the past five years.
The United States is proud to be standing with Ukraine. We are proud to be working and training alongside, and providing equipment and weapons and resources for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
So I congratulate Ukraine, and all Ukrainians, for being brave and strong in the face of this war.
I certainly want to welcome and congratulate the participants from Houston. It’s great to have the Houston police force represented here. And the participants from Moldova and Romania. The friendships and the comraderies that develop over this kind of training are very valuable and last a long time.
So again, congratulations. Thank you very much for having me here; I’m sorry for being late! Dyakuyu vam.
